Few presidents arrive in office with large plans around foreign affairs. Yet most live to see their reputations defined by it. For Barack Obama, whose time in office coincides with a series of tectonic shifts in global structure – the Arab revolutions, the relative decline of American power, the rise of China – that pattern shows every sign of holding. But what kind of foreign policy leader is he? How Obama thinks about America's role in the world turns out to be one of the thornier questions about his presidency.
A briefing for David Cameron in advance of this week's state visit to Great Britain, the first by an American president for eight years, might begin with the following thumbnail profile: Obama's views fit neatly into none of the conventional categories like "realist" or "idealist," "interventionist" or "isolationist." At the time he began his presidential campaign, less than four years ago, Obama had no discernible approach to foreign affairs. He had been an Illinois state legislator, a professor of constitutional law and briefly a US senator who was mainly concerned with issues of social policy. His most notable stance was clear opposition to the invasion of Iraq, which he called a "dumb war" at a 2002 peace rally in Chicago.
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